Dr. Busby has always been represented by trustees from that. school.

The architecture of Wrighte's Church everywhere expresses the Protestant feeling of Queen Anne's reign: the greater part exhibits striking simplicity, the only symbol in the church being the seven candlesticks above the reredos, indicating the Spirit's presence; and the cornice near the roof is decorated with bishops' mitres and open Bibles, indicating strongly the devotion of the family to the Protestant succession. The church, which is pewed with oak, is divided into four compartments; in the compartment at the south-east, which consists of one pew only, appropriated to the owner of the estate, is the indescribably beautiful monument in white marble of Sir Nathan and George Wrighte, each in an enormous Parian wig. There is no inscription; but this is explained by the fact that both father and son died before the completion of the church.

XVII.

SIR EVERARD DIGBY AND THE GUNPOWDER PLOT.

WITHIN a few miles of Olney are several localities replete with memories of that famous conspiracy generally known as the Gunpowder Plot. At Turvey, four miles to the east, dwelt Lord Mordaunt, who, though probably innocent, was heavily fined for supposed complicity in it, and at whose mansion, Turvey Old Hall, Keyes, one of the conspirators, was a frequent visitor. Hardmead, four miles to the south-east, was one of the seats of the Catesbys; at Weston Underwood resided the Throckmortons (a family allied by marriage with the Catesbys and Treshams), at whose different mansions the conspirators frequently met; but the chief interest centres itself at Gayhurst, the principal residence of the gentle, gifted, misguided, and unhappy Sir Everard Digby.

Everard Digby was born in 1581 at his father's mansion of Drystoke in Rutlandshire; and, having been left a ward of the crown at an early age by the death of his father, had in consequence been educated in the Protestant faith. In 1596, when only about sixteen, he married Mary, daughter of Thomas Mulso, heiress of the magnificent estate of Gotehurst. Although greatly favoured by Queen Elizabeth, and seemingly on the road to high honours and distinction, for he was accounted one of the handsomest, most accomplished, and best informed men of his time, Digby retired at the age of twenty-one to Gayhurst, where he was converted to the ancient faith by the celebrated Garnet, the Provincial of the English Jesuits, a man who thenceforward exercised the greatest influence over him. In 1603 he was knighted at Belvoir Towers by King James I., who was journeying southward to take possession of the throne of England; and the same year was born his eldest son, afterwards the celebrated Sir Kenelm. After James had been on

the throne a short time, notwithstanding his previous fair promises, all the old and severe laws were enforced against the Catholics, and in consequence many persons who previously had been merely religious dissidents were converted into political traitors. Sir Everard, who was of a mild and amiable temper, was greatly touched at the sufferings of his coreligionists, and deeply concerned at the fallen state of the Catholic religion, upon the restoration of which his whole thoughts were bent; but, for all that, it was with greatest difficulty he could be induced to join the Gunpowder Plot. The main incidents of the conspiracy are familiar to almost every one, but in these pages we shall tell the story more particularly as it concerns Digby. The sufferings of the Roman Catholics were terrible indeed. They were fined, imprisoned, mutilated, many had been executed as recusants, and the persecution increased rather than diminished. This treatment, together with the double-dealing and deceit of King James, drove many of them, who would otherwise have been peaceful subjects, into the hands of the Jesuits and seminary priests, who for some years previous had been travelling about the country in disguise and intriguing against the Government. Bitter, however, as was the persecution, the great body of the Catholics "chose rather to suffer in silence and hope for better days than to rise in rebellion. The originator of the plot, Robert Catesby of Catesby Hall, Ashby St. Leger, near Daventry, a brave though wild and dissolute man, had been engaged in most of the plots against Elizabeth. He was at this time about forty years of age. The idea of gunpowder being suggested to his mind he first unfolded his plans to his friend Thomas Winter, who, though at first shocked at the idea, finally fell in with it, and furthermore procured on the Continent the services of Guy Fawkes.

The next to join the plot was John Wright, reckoned the best swordsman of the day, who, unlike most of the other conspirators, seems never to have been troubled with any compunctions about the matter. These three, Catesby, Wright, and Winter were the arch-traitors. In the words of Fawkes, they "first devised the plot and were the chief directors of all

the particularities of it." It is a question, it must be observed, who was admitted first, Wright or Winter. The fifth conspirator was Thomas Percy. All five having previously sworn each other to secrecy in a house near London, adjourned to an upper room, and received, in confirmation of their oath, the sacrament from the hand of the Jesuit missionary, Father Gerard, who is said not to have known what they proposed to do. They are believed to have held their meetings in the room over the gateway of the Gatehouse of Catesby Hall, which apartment is still pointed out as the "plot-room." A house contiguous to the Parliament House was now hired by Percy under the pretence of convenience, because his office of gentleman pensioner compelled him to reside in the vicinity of the Court; the real reason why this house was chosen being the fact that its back wall leaned against one of the walls of the Parliament House, into the cellars of which the conspirators hoped to break through. On the other side of the Thames, at Lambeth, which was then a scattered village, they had another house in which they secretly stored wood and gunpowder. Then, having laid in a stock of things that would keep, such as hard-boiled eggs, dried meat, and pasties, they at once commenced with their crowbars and pickaxes.

On December 24 (1604), after about a fortnight of uninterrupted labour, they discovered that Parliament was prorogued from the 7th of February to the 3d of October; and, in consequence, stopped work and separated. Before their next meeting the secret had been imparted to two others, Christopher Wright and Robert Winter. We will not linger over the difficulties encountered in the cellar through the influx of water, and the hardness and thickness of the wall they were endeavouring to pierce; their terror at the sound of the bell tolling beneath the ground, and the rumbling over their heads; or their great joy on finding that the rumbling noise came from a cellar which lay under the House of Lords. The mine was abandoned, the new cellar hired, and into it, under the cover of night, were conveyed the barrels of gunpowder that had been collected in the house at Lambeth. The gunpowder having been concealed under stones and billets of wood, the

conspirators again separated, to meet in September, a few days before the opening of Parliament.

In the meantime the persecutions of the Catholics increased in severity; their priests were hunted down, their houses ransacked, and the most unprovoked hostility was excited against them all over the country. All this, however, pleased rather than irritated Catesby, who "considered his victims as running blindly to their own destruction, and argued that the more the Catholics suffered, the more readily they would join his standard after the explosion." Four new accomplices were now added: Bates (Catesby's servant), Keyes, a gentleman of decayed fortunes, the melancholy and taciturn John Grant of Northbrook in Warwickshire, and Ambrose Rookwood of Coldham Hall, Suffolk. In September Sir Edmund Baynham, a gentleman of Gloucestershire, was admitted, and sent to Rome, not to reveal the plot, but to gain the favour of the Pope and his Court when the blow should be struck.

To the alarm of the conspirators it was now announced that the Parliament would again be prorogued from October to the 5th of November. And they had reason to be alarmed, for their resources had run low, and they were at their wits' end to know how to get more money. They perceived, too, that their chances of discovery would be considerably increased. It was this second prorogation that caused them to think of Francis Tresham and Sir Everard Digby, both, on account of their great wealth, being desirable as accomplices. The difficult task of persuading Digby was performed by Garnet, who first of all insidiously laid bare to him a plan for glorifying God and the Church; but it is said that he was not made aware of the plot itself until a secret meeting between them, in the dead of night, in Gotehurst Church, where, after inducing him to swear a solemn oath before the altar, Garnet unfolded, to the horror of his victim, the plans for the destruction of the nobility. Other meetings ensued, Garnet also put a Jesuitical book into his hands, and, by degrees, the misgivings of the unfortunate gentleman were silenced; he suffered himself to be persuaded to contribute a sum of £1500, and undertook to bring together, about the time of the opening of Parliament,